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Stamford Conn.

The 1790 Census: New England by the Numbers

Just after the American Revolution, Gilmanton, N.H., ranked as the 30^th biggest municipality in the United States. The Lakes Region town was bigger than Pittsburgh, Portland, Raleigh, Trenton, Louisville, Cincinnati and Savannah, according to the 1790 census.

New Hampshire, in fact, had four towns among the 30 largest in the country, including Londonderry, Portsmouth and Rochester. Only four New England states belonged to the union then, but they were home to 19 of the 30 biggest cities and towns in the country. Back then, one in four U.S. citizens lived in New England.

The region’s power and influence in the early Republic can be inferred from the 1790 census, the first taken in the United States. It didn’t last long. The westward migration had already begun in 1787, from a minister’s house in Ipswich, Mass. As people migrated west for land and opportunity, new cities and towns began to eclipse those of New England.

Maj. Gen. Henry Dearborn served as U.S. Marshal for Maine during the 1790 census. Painting by Gilbert Stuart.

The 1790 Census

In 1790, there were 93,000 people living in Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, including the District of Maine. A year after the federal government took the 1790 census, 86,000 Vermonters officially joined New England.

Massachusetts alone held nearly 10 percent of the U.S. population, and Boston ranked as the third biggest municipality. Only New York and Philadelphia had more people. Census takers counted Boston’s population at 18,320 — about the size of contemporary Hopkinton, Mass.

Jonathan Jackson served as U.S. Marshal for Massachusetts during the 1790 census.

Today, only 2.1 percent of the U.S. population lives in Massachusetts, and Boston has slipped to the 24th biggest city.

Census taking in 1790 was an inexact science. Congress ordered U.S. marshals to take it. Each state had only one marshal, so the marshal appointed assistants to count people. The 650 enumerators had nine months to collect the data and post the results in two public places. Then they stored the results in the federal courthouse.

The U.S. marshals in New England included Maj. Gen. Henry Dearborn for Maine, Jonathan Jackson for Massachusetts, John Parker for New Hampshire, William Peck for Rhode Island and Philip Bradley for Connecticut.

Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both questioned whether the census could count everyone. During a time of difficult travel and communication, the enumerators probably missed some people. And they deliberately missed all Indians not taxed, for example.

In the end, the census takers managed to count just under 4 million people.

A pitcher commemorating the 1790 census

Urban vs. Rural

The vast majority of Americans lived in the country in 1790. New Hampshire was one of the more urban states, with more towns in the Top 30 rankings than Connecticut, which only had New Haven and Hartford. New Hampshire, in fact, had more municipalities in the Top 30 than Pennsylvania, which had almost three times the population.

Today, New Hampshire’s biggest city – Manchester – ranks 259^th, the only New Hampshire municipality among the top 300 U.S. cities.

Massachusetts was similarly urban, though some towns had not yet started to grow into cities – Worcester, Springfield and Fall River, for example, were all smaller than Gilmanton, N.H. Lowell didn’t even exist.

But the towns in Massachusetts that ranked in the top 30 might surprise you. In ascending order, they were Plymouth, Beverly, New Bedford, Taunton, Middleborough, Sherburne, Newburyport, Gloucester, Marblehead and Salem. Salem was bigger than Richmond, Va., and Albany, N.Y. Middleborough, Mass., was also bigger than Albany.

New England, in fact, had five of the 10 largest urban places in the United States: Boston, Salem, Mass.; Newport, R.I.; Providence, R.I., and Marblehead, Mass.

Connecticut had a significantly more rural character then than it does now. New Hampshire’s population was denser, especially along the southern border. The Connecticut towns of Stamford, Waterbury and Danbury had fewer people than Gilmanton. Bridgeport, now Connecticut’s biggest city, wouldn’t incorporate for another 30 years.

Westward Ho!

The center of the U.S. population has steadily moved west and slightly south, as people migrated and new states joined the union. New England’s presence steadily declined.

Ten years after the 1790 census, only 15 New England cities ranked in the top 30, despite having added Vermont. And in 1820, New England had just 13 of the biggest cities and towns.

In 1790, Massachusetts had 9.7 percent of the U.S. population. Twenty years later it had only 6.5 percent, as four states had joined the union. And in 229 years, the Bay State has slipped from fourth to 15^th place.

Gilmanton has grown a little from its base of 2,613 in 1790, when it had an ironworks and a half-dozen villages and parishes. In 2017, 3,734 lived in the town. But Gilmanton never again appeared on the list of the top 30 cities and towns in the United States.

For a list of the Top 30 cities, click here.

This story was updated in 2021.

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The USS Kearsarge Launched at Portsmouth to Slay the Alabama

In 1862, the Confederate Naval vessel CSS Alabama was the scourge of the seas. Just over a year into the Civil War the Confederacy had bought the ship in England. And the Union Navy had dispatched its own warship, the USS Kearsarge, to stop it.

Built in secrecy to avoid falling afoul of the British government’s official stance of neutrality, the Alabama was launched without cannon. Because the British couldn’t sell her as an armed vessel, the Confederacy to arm her. As soon as the ship entered international waters, the Confederate Navy outfitted her with eight cannon. Then it set her loose on a mission to capture as many merchant ships headed for America’s northern states as possible.

The Alabama may have exceeded the Confederates’ wildest expectations. Under the command of Capt. Raphael Semmes, she burned 65 ships, though never harmed their crew or passengers.

Under both power and sail, the ship could make 13 knots. Its captain and crew quickly made their impact on the war. Within a month of her commissioning, Alabama was cruising the shipping lanes east of the Azores, capturing and burning every American merchant vessel she encountered. Commissioned in July of 1862, she had destroyed 21 ships before the end of the year.

The Union Navy had taken notice of the Alabama. She had easily sunk a Union sidewheeler the USS Hatteras in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

The Battle of Kearsarge vs. Alabama by Edouard Manet, Philadelphia Museum of Art

The USS Kearsarge Receives her Orders

The Navy had constructed the USS Kearsarge at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in 1861 and sent her to sea in search of Confederate raiders.

New Hampshire newspaper publisher Henry McFarland claimed he had suggested naming the vessel for New Hampshire’s Mount Kearsarge to his friend, an assistant secretary of the Navy who summered in the Granite State. The assistant secretary would later say his own wife suggested the name.

USS Kearsarge

Either way, the USS Kearsage had been launched in 1862 and soon it was given a new mission: Capture or sink the Alabama. Capt. John Winslow, a Mayflower descendant, and a crew of sailors, many from New England, tackled their mission with gusto. From November 1862 to March 1863 the Kearsarge underwent some special modifications at ports in Spain.

The Kearsarge carried seven guns and under power and sail she could manage 11 knots. Though she might not seem quite a match for the Alabama, the Union Navy had taken notice of the awesome power of the Alabama. Steps were taken to strengthen Kearsarge. Along her sides, strategically placed to protect her engines, the Spanish shipyard installed three layers of chain armoring. And to disguise the battle armor, they constructed false wooden sides that sat atop the armor, painted black to match the hull.

The Kearsarge Hunts Alabama

For months, the Kearsarge scoured the Atlantic in search of the Alabama. But the elusive Alabama sailed the waters of South America and across to Africa, leaving a trail of devastation in her wake. By June of 1863, when the Alabama pulled into the French port of Cherbourg for much needed refitting, she had captured and destroyed 65 ships. She had boarded more than 450 ships and taken 2,000 prisoners over a period of 560 days.

When the officers of the Kearsarge learned the Alabama was in Cherbourg, they made their way to the port at best speed, arriving just three days after the Alabama. At the mouth of the port, the Kearsarge’s pursuit stopped abruptly. France was neutral in the war, and an attack on a ship in port would have been an unprovoked act of war.

CSS Alabama

The Kearsarge requested support from other Union naval vessels in blockading the Alabama in port. The commander of the Alabama made a snap decision. He would not be hemmed into the port while the Union Navy gathered strength. He quickly outfitted the Alabama to go to sea with the intention of engaging the Kearsarge.

Kearsarge at the Battle of Cherbourg

On June 19, the Alabama left port. The Kearsarge raced ahead of it to reach international waters to avoid a naval battle in French waters. Safely out to sea, the two vessels began to circle, each trying to gain an advantage.

From a range of 1,000 feet, the Alabama fired first. The Kearsarge waited until the ships got closer. On shore, spectators watched as the two ships fired hundreds of cannon shots at each other. The Alabama fired more than 370 shots at the Kearsarge, but the Kearsarge’s makeshift armor held. Though her hull bent under the barrage, it did not break.

The gun that sunk the Alabama

The Kearsarge fired far fewer shots, but her shots were accurate. When the smoke began to clear, the Alabama was sinking. The Kearsarge had blasted holes through the ship below the waterline, dooming the mighty Alabama.

The Alabama surrendered. Capt. Semmes dumped his sword into the ocean rather than face the indignity of surrendering it — an act considered dishonorable by some. One man was killed on the Kearsarge and two were injured. On the Confederate side, 19 men died. Some 70 men surrendered to the Kearsarge. Semmes managed to flee aboard on a passing British vessel and escape to England with about 40 of his men.

The crew of the Kearsarge were hailed as heroes back in New York. For their actions in the Battle of Cherbourg, 17 sailors received the medal of valor. The ship, meanwhile, would continue in service in various capacities up until 1894.

The Kearsarge commander, John Winslow, was promoted to commodore and then rear admiral, commanding the Pacific Squadron until his retirement in 1872. He died in Boston shortly thereafter.

Aftermath and Repercussions

The Alabama’s captain, Raphael Semmes, went on to teach Moral Philosophy at the Louisiana State Seminary, later Louisiana State University. He died in 1877 from complications of food poisoning after earing contaminated shrimp. The city of Semmes, Ala., was named after him.

Cartoon showing the US bullying Britain into paying the Alabama Claim

Britain had angered the United States by letting one of its shipyards build the Alabama. That led to a long legal challenge initially led led by American Minister Charles Francis Adams, the son and grandson of presidents. Known as the Alabama Claims, the U.S. demanded payment of damages for the destruction wrought by the Alabama and several other British-built Confederate raiders. In 1872, Britain settled with a payment of $15.5 million.

In 1984, a French Navy mine hunter discovered the wreck of the Alabama off Cherbourg. The archaeological investigation recovered several cannon. In 2002, a diving expedition recovered the ship’s bell along with cannon, tableware and ornamental commodes.

In Stamford, Conn., a cannon from the USS Kearsarge stood in West Park from 1901 until 1942. It was then hauled away as scrap during World War II.

Thanks to: Kearsarge Mountain and the Corvette Named for It by Henry MacFarland.

Images: The gun that sank the Alabama By Internet Archive Book Images – https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14576197040/Source book page: https://archive.org/stream/photographichist06mill/photographichist06mill#page/n308/mode/1up, No restrictions, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43879541. Battle of Kearsarge and Alabama By Édouard Manet – 1. From en.wiki2. The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1757414. Painting of Alabama By Rear Admiral J. W. Schmidt [1] – From the US Navy's Naval Historical Center. Originally from en.wikipedia; description page is (was) here;uploaded onto en.wiki 03:11, 14 November 2004 by McMullen 740×571 (59,800 bytes; Painting of CSS Alabama), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1338854,

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The Secret History of New England’s Sundown Towns

“Whites Only Within City Limits After Dark” reads the faded road sign, an artifact on display at the Tubman African American Museum in Georgia. The sign was found outside one of Connecticut’s sundown towns.

Sundown towns were municipalities that prevented African-Americans or other minorities from lingering after dark.

A sundown town sign found in Connecticut

James Loewen, a sociologist who taught at the University of Vermont, discovered thousands of sundown towns throughout the United States, including New England.

Beginning in the 1890s, New England’s small towns and rural communities drove African-Americans into urban ghettoes, Loewen contends.

Small towns kept out not just black people, but Jews, Catholics, Greeks, Italians, Indians, even trade unionists and gays. They used violence and intimidation and restrictive covenants and mortgage practices

Great Migration

Some New England counties drove out their entire African-American populations. From 1890 to 1940, many African Americans who lived in rural areas of New England had to move to cities.

From 1890 to 1930, the U.S. black population increased 60 percent. Between 1915 and 1930, more than a million African-Americans moved from the South and the Caribbean to the North. And yet entire counties in New England became whiter.

In Maine, for example, only two of the state’s 16 counties had fewer than 10 blacks in 1890. By 1930, Maine had five.

Writes Loewen, in Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism, 14 Maine counties had at least 18 African Americans. By 1930, only nine did. Five black people lived in Lincoln County in 1930, where 26 had lived in 1890. Hancock County had 30,000 people in 1930, but only three were black. Forty years earlier, there had been 56.

Vermont had no all-white counties until 1930. New Hampshire had no all-white counties in 1890, but two in 1930.

Rise of the Klan

Keeping out African-Americans happened well before the 19th and 20^th century. In 1717, Town Meeting in New London, Conn., voted against free blacks living in the town or owning land anywhere in the colony.

But in the 1890s, racism deepened in the North as memories of the Civil War faded. Waves of Catholic and Jewish immigrants from Canada and southern Europe moved into Yankee mill towns. The influx of immigrants sparked the revival of the Ku Klux Klan — and created sundown towns.

In the early 1920s, the Klan began to hold regular meetings and cross-burnings in small towns in eastern and central Massachusetts. A Klan rally near Montpelier, Vt., in 1925 drew 10,000.

Klan members march on Washington in 1926

The Klan spread rapidly in Maine, with 15,000 showing up at the state convention in 1923. The KKK held its first daylight parade in the United States in Milo, Maine, in 1923, and others soon followed.

In 1925, The Washington Post estimated New England had more than a half-million Klansmen, with 150,141 in Maine and more than 370,000 across the other New England states.

Though Klan membership fell almost as quickly as it grew in New England, the KKK left a legacy of sundown towns. Their history is rarely told.

Tales of Sundown Towns

Loewen collected anecdotes about places where minorities were afraid to spend the night.

Italian stonecutters who quarried in Portland, Conn., were told to be on the other side of the Connecticut River by sundown. The bridge would then stay open at night so no one could pass over it.
One resident of the Wollaston neighborhood of Quincy, Mass., remembers an incident from the mid-1950s: “My father, a jazz musician, had some of his musician friends over one night for some jamming. Most of the musicians involved were black. The next day, a delegation of neighbors…came by to register their disapproval that my father had blacks in their neighborhood after dark.”
A similar story was told about Burlington, Conn. An African-American family friend from Waterbury came over to play cards. “He always made a habit of leaving before sunset and if he could not, he would spend the night on the couch. … [In] earlier years, whenever he would drive in or out of town, the police would stop and harass him, detain him for questioning, or pull him over and run his license and plates. Comments were made to the effect that being a black man in Burlington after dark, he couldn’t be up to any good…”

Starting in the 1930s, the Negro Motorist Green Book guided African-American travelers away from sundown towns. Black travelers typically carried blankets, food and cans of gasoline in their cars to avoid embarrassment, or worse.

Restrictive Covenants

In 1905, restrictive covenants began appearing in property deeds. They typically stated, “No portion of these premises shall ever be sold to or occupied by anyone other than members of the white or Caucasian race.” Then they often added, “Nothing in the foregoing shall preclude live-in servants.”

The exception rather than the rule: Jackie Robinson at home in Stamford with his wife Rachel, sons David, Jackie Jr.. and Sharon.

A 1940 deed for a development called High Ledge Homes in West Hartford, Conn., said, “No person of any race except the white race shall use or occupy any building on any lot.” The deed allowed one exception for people of a different race: the owner’s employees.

Similarly, Manchester-By-The-Sea in Massachusetts only allowed blacks and Jews to live within its borders if they were servants.

Government-Supported Sundown Towns

The federal government encouraged sundown towns through discriminatory mortgage practices. Between 1934 and 1968, 98 percent of loans approved by the federal government in Connecticut went to white, non-Hispanic borrowers.

In 1954, baseball great Jackie Robinson bought a house in Stamford, Conn., but only with help from prominent white people. He proved the exception in suburban New England.

In Nahant, Mass., a property deed written in the 1920s contained language forbidding the owner to sell the house to Greeks or Jews. (Nahant, ironically, now has the densest population of Greek descendants in New England.)

Anti-Semitism

A film that exposed Darien as one of Connecticut’s sundown towns.

In 1922, the Sharon, Conn., chamber of commerce distributed a leaflet asking homeowners not to sell to Jews. Another realtor in Greenwich, Conn., sent a similar memo. It said, “From this date on, when anyone telephones us in answer to an ad in any newspaper and their name is, or appears to be Jewish, do not meet them anywhere.”

Darien, Conn., did not let Jews spend the night within its borders. The 1947 film Gentleman’s Agreement , co-starring Paul Revere’s descendant Anne Revere. exposed the practice. Gregory Peck played a reporter pretending to be Jewish to write a story on anti-Semitism.

The Civil Rights movement then started to change all that with laws against racist policies. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited housing discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, family status or national origin.

But attitudes didn’t necessarily change.

In 1973, all-white Ashby, Mass., voted at Town Meeting 148 to 79 against inviting people of color into town.

Photos: Darien, Conn., via Wikimedia. This story about sundown towns was updated in 2023. With thanks to Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism by James Loewen.

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Al Marder, The Oldest Living Communist Victim of the Red Scare

Al Marder in 2021 attended a ceremony celebrating the return of the Amistad replica to New Haven Harbor. At 99 years old, he had played a big part in bringing the Amistad story to the public’s attention.

He had still served as president of the Amistad Committee at the age of 94. He chaired of Connecticut’s Freedom Trail. And he was one of the last surviving Communists persecuted during the Red Scare of the Cold War Era.

Al Marder at James Hillhouse High School

Al Marder

Marder grew up in New Haven during the Great Depression, the son of Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine. They ran a small grocery store in a poor neighborhood of African-Americans, Germans, Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Italians, Lithuanians and Irish railroad workers.

“As a boy it became very evident to me how people were living and scraping along,“ he recalled in a 2016 interview with The New England Historical Society. “The store was near the railroad yards, and I saw men getting off the cars, looking for work or something to eat. If it snowed, everyone went down to City Hall to get a job shoveling snow…There was the sheriff sitting in the store collecting receipts because my parents couldn’t pay the bills.”

During the desperate years of the Great Depression, many Americans questioned capitalism and turned toward communism as a solution to the country’s despair. Within a decade, America’s communist allies became enemies. Led by Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy innocent people were accused of espionage, imprisoned, thrown out of work.

Al Marder was a victim of the anti-communist hysteria. So was another Connecticut resident, Arthur Miller, who compared it to the Salem witch trials in his play The Crucible.

Marder was indicted in 1954 for plotting to overthrow the U.S. government. His lawyer, Catherine Roraback, later became famous for arguing the Griswold v. Connecticut trial, which legalized birth control in Connecticut and paved the way for recognition of the right to privacy.

Al Marder, Activist

At James Hillhouse High School, Al Marder got interested in the political ferment that was all around him. Some of his fellow students were Socialists like their parents. Young women wore leather jackets and berets to show their support for the Loyalists during the Spanish Civil War.

Al Marder, still active after all these years.

Marder organized a peace council at Hillhouse to discuss politics, and before school he sneaked out of the house to distribute handbills for the New Haven labor movement. The garment workers didn’t really need him, he said, but he leafleted the workers at Sargent’s and New Haven Clock before the 7 a.m. shift.

By 1954 he had graduated from the University of Connecticut, served in Europe during World War II, married, had several small children and become a journeyman printer. He also faced prison, charged with advocating the violent overthrow of the U.S. government.

Marder had never abandoned his activism. As a young man he had campaigned successfully for the state to make college accessible to working-class students by offering night school, now Southern Connecticut State University. He organized a scholarship campaign for African-American students at UConn and the first integrated amateur drama club in Connecticut called the Unity Players. He went to meetings of the Wobblies, and told the Shoeleather History Project he met Elizabeth Gurley Flynn several times.

Al Marder also belonged to the Communist Party.

The Trial

The Communist Party of Connecticut didn’t survive the Red Scare. Al Marder got his union card and went to work for Donnelly Bros. in Bristol. He heard that all Connecticut Communists were to be arrested, so he took off for New York and assumed the name Ken Green. That job didn’t last, but he got another one in Stamford. One day he was walking to lunch and heard a woman shouting, “Spies, there are spies here!” She had belonged to the Young Communist League with them as a student. The police picked them up but had no grounds for arrest and released them.

The 1940 Smith Act, however, had made it a crime to advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government. Al Marder was finally arrested and charged under the Smith Act, along with six other New Haven Communists. Police swept them up with 125 other Communists in 11 U.S. cities, including Boston.

Al Marder, 2016

Marder’s task was to find a lawyer. He sent 100 mimeographed letters to lawyers throughout the state and one agreed to take his case. Catherine Roraback was fresh out of Yale Law School. Her uncle, J. Henry Roraback, had controlled the Republican Party in Connecticut.

She was bright, committed and took full advantage of her name, recalled Marder. “Volunteering to be a lawyer for a Communist when the entire country was embroiled in anticommunism — it took courage.”

The trial lasted seven months and made headline news. Marder was acquitted and the cases of the others were thrown out due to insufficient evidence. “They were just ordinary people looking for a better society,” he said. The judge and jury knew they were expected to convict them – but didn’t.

Aftermath

Before the trial began, Marder had gotten a job as a printer in New York City under his assumed name. The night he was acquitted, he got a phone call at home from his old boss who said, “Al, if you need a job come back.”

“He called me in, said ‘I knew who you were from the morning you walked into the place’,” Marder recalled. The FBI had said to fire him. His boss said he couldn’t because he had a union contract, and the only way he could fire him was if he was incompetent during the 90-day probation or if he did something in the shop.

Marder for years worked on the Amistad Committee, bringing to light the story of the slave revolt and the court decision that upheld freedom for the captured Africans. Picture here: the Freedom Schooner Amistad.

Marder wound up working in the horticulture industry, representing growers – and spending the rest of his life working for peace and justice.

In 1957, the U.S. Supreme Court severely restricted the Smith Act, ruling it violated the U.S. Constitution.

Mary Donohue profiled Marder in her article, “A Life of Conviction” in the Spring 2016 edition of “Connecticut Explored,” the magazine of Connecticut history. To find out how to subscribe, click here.

This story last updated in 2022.

Images: Freedom Schooner Amistad By Rhvanwinkle, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36402773

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William F. Buckley, Jr., The Merry Gladiator of the Right

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William F. Buckley, Jr., for decades skewered liberals with such charm and merriment that most of them ended up liking him. Some even became good friends.

Buckley was a witty public intellectual who almost singlehandedly made conservatism respectable in America. He laid the groundwork for Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, even as he advocated legalizing marijuana.

Wealthy and tasteful, Buckley did many things well: played the harpsichord, sailed, wrote a syndicated column, hosted a television program, founded a magazine, circulated among high society and wrote 50 books.

He was famously self confident, writing in the New York Times Book Review in 1986,

I asked myself the other day, ‘Who else, on so many issues, has been so right so much of the time?’ I couldn’t think of anyone.

Precocious Youth

William Frank Buckley, Jr., was born on Nov. 24, 1925 in New York City, the sixth of 10 children. His father, William Frank Buckley, Sr., was a Texas-born Irish-Catholic oil baron. His mother, Aloise Steiner Buckley, was a native of New Orleans.

They wanted to name the baby after his father but the priest insisted on a saint’s name. He was baptized ‘William Francis.’ When he was five, he asked his parents if he could change his middle name to Frank. They agreed, and he was a junior.

Despite abandoning the saint’s name, he was a devout Catholic throughout his life. “I grew up, as reported, in a large family of Catholics without even a decent ration of tentativeness among the lot of us about our religious faith,” he wrote. He regularly attended traditional Latin Mass in Connecticut.

William F. Buckley, Sr., moved his family around to Sharon, Conn., London and Mexico while building his fortune. Young Bill’s first language was Spanish; he didn’t learn English until he was seven. When he was eight, he wrote a letter to the king of England demanding repayment of a war debt to the United States.

The 10 Buckley children were tutored to be perfect. According to a family history, they were instructed in “apologetics, art, ballroom dancing, banjo, bird-watching, building boats in bottles, calligraphy, canoeing, carpentry, cooking, driving trotting horses, French, folk-dancing, golf, guitar (Hawaiian and Spanish), harmony, herb-gardening, horsemanship, history of architecture, ice-skating, mandolin, marimba, music appreciation, organ, painting, piano, playing popular music, rumba, sailing, skiing, Spanish, speech, stenography, swimming, tap-dancing, tennis, typing and wood-carving.”

Before college, Buckley joined the Army as a second lieutenant and served on the honor guard for President Franklin D. Roosevelt upon his death.

An Atheistic Nest

At Yale he joined Skull and Bones, was recruited by the CIA and wrote a book critiquing the school as an atheistic nest of liberal degeneracy. God and Man at Yale launched his career as a media figure. He is mentioned in the book The Manchurian Candidate as “that fascinating young man who wrote about man and God at Yale.” He had no use for Harvard, either, saying,

Buckley in 1952

I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.

After college, he worked for the CIA in Mexico City for two years. His boss, E. Howard Hunt, later engineered the Watergate break-in for President Richard Nixon. Hunt and Buckley remained friends for life. Years after he left Mexico, Buckley recalled,

In 1980 I found myself seated next to the former president of Mexico at a ski-area restaurant. What, he asked amiably, had I done when I lived in Mexico? “I tried to undermine your regime, Mr. President.” He thought this amusing.

In 1950 he married Patricia Aldyen Austin Taylor. They called each other ‘Ducky’ and had one son, Christopher. At nearly six feet tall, Pat Buckley was a towering, impeccably dressed figure on the social and philanthropic circuit. She was known for her dark wit. Once, John Kenneth Galbraith brought Ted Kennedy to the Buckley’s winter home, a former monastery near Gstaad, Switzerland. Kennedy asked if he could borrow a car to drive back to Gstaad. She replied, “Certainly not – there are three bridges between here and Gstaad.”

Hungover Duchess

Buckley left the CIA and went on to defend U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, found National Review magazine and host the television program Firing Line, which ran for 33 years. He wrote a syndicated column and 50 books, including two autobiographies, sailing journals, spy novels featuring Blackford Oakes and a children’s book he claimed to have written in 45 minutes.

At the National Review

National Review started with a gift of $100,000 from his father and $290,000 from donors. He used the magazine to weave together libertarianism, traditionalism, and anticommunism to create a new brand of conservatism that came to define the modern right. He also launched a generation of conservative pundits and brought his family into the movement. His brother James was elected U.S. Senator from New York. L. Brent Bozell is his brother-in-law and Bill O’Reilly is his nephew.

His Firing Line performances made him an icon of popular culture.

He had an idiosyncratic accent, once described as “upper-class mid-Atlantic and British Received Pronunciation with a southern drawl.” His slashing, witty debate style inspired admiration and mockery. Writers had a field day describing his mannerisms. Wrote Henry Allen in the Washington Post,

…he shot his jaw, tapped his lip with a pen and slouched ever further in his chair, his teeth bared in the grimace that reminded you of a woodchuck and a hung-over duchess at the same time. While the eyebrows — the eyebrows! — wandered off like the vagaries of life itself…

Lily Tomlin as her Ernestine character lampooned him as ‘William Fuhbuckley.’ Comedian David Frye practically made a career out of impersonating him. You can see a clip from Frye’s appearance on The Smothers Brothers Show here. (It starts at 3:50.)

William F. Buckley for Mayor

Buckley ran a quixotic race for mayor of New York City in 1965, during which he refused to use his rebuttal time in a debate with Republican John Lindsay, saying, “I am satisfied to sit back and contemplate my own former eloquence.” When asked what he would do if he won, he said, “Demand a recount.”

Arguing with Gore Vidal over the 1968 Chicago riots

By 1968 he was publicly feuding with liberal intellectual Gore Vidal on television and in print. While debating on ABC News the riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Vidal called Buckley a crypto-Nazi. Buckley replied,

Now listen, you queer. Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, or I’ll sock you in the goddamn face, and you’ll stay plastered.

He later said he regretted calling Vidal ‘queer.’ They sued each other for libel.

In 1973, Nixon appointed Buckley as a delegate to the United Nations, the only official position he ever held. Buckley did play an active role behind the scenes in politics. He organized a committee to unseat Connecticut’s liberal Republican Sen. Lowell Weicker and endorsed his Democratic opponent, Joe Lieberman.

William F. Buckley Jr. with President Reagan

Buckley changed his views over time. He originally supported segregation, but later renounced racism. He spoke out for the legalization of marijuana, though supported a ban on tobacco. Pat died in 2007 after a lifetime of smoking. He never endorsed homosexuality and called for AIDS victims to be tattooed on their buttocks.

William F. Buckley died on Feb. 27, 2008 at his home in Stamford, Conn. A year earlier, he summed up his life – with a memorable quotation, of course:

I get satisfaction of three kinds. One is creating something, one is being paid for it and one is the feeling that I haven’t just been sitting on my ass all afternoon.

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Joshua Hempstead, Diarist of Colonial New London, Conn.

Joshua Hempstead throughout his long life in colonial New England pursued many business activities, some of which carried perils almost unimaginable today. Misfortune could strike at any time, and the early colonists knew well the vicissitudes of life.

He was a model New Englander of the era, a devout, hard-working tradesman, dedicated to his family and to his community.

A page from Joshua Hempstead’s diary

Hempstead worked as a surveyor, shipwright, gravestone carver, lawyer, local official and — always — a farmer. Like 90 percent of colonial New England men, he could read and write, and he kept a diary for most of his life. He used it to keep track of his many business and civic activities. He noted the weather, baptisms, engagements, deaths, military trainings, court sessions, ship traffic, town meetings, thanksgivings, fasts, feasts and his travels. The New London County Historical Society published it in 1901. Historians for many years used it for its references to events like the Boston fire of 1711 and the Great Awakening of the 1740s.

As historians got more interested in the lives of ordinary people, the diary drew more attention. Today, the Connecticut Historical Society views his diary as an important source about colonial life in Connecticut.

Joshua Hempstead

Joshua Hempstead was born Sept. 1, 1678 in New London, the only son of Joshua Hempstead and Elizabeth Larrabee. His grandfather, Robert Hempstead, had entailed the house to his oldest son. That meant oldest sons in perpetuity would inherit the entire estate.

The Joshua Hempstead House

Joshua’s father, a wheelwright, died when he was only 10, and Joshua inherited the house. His descendants lived in the house until 1937.

As a boy he entered into apprenticeship with a shipwright, then the aristocrats of the wood-turning trades. Around 1698 he married Abigail Bailey of Long Island. They had nine children. Abigail died in 1716 a few days after giving birth to their last child. Joshua Hempstead never remarried, but reared the children with the help of relatives and women hired to help with the housework.

Joshua Hempstead, 1711

New London had been founded in 1646 by John Winthrop the Younger, son of the Puritan leader of the Massachusetts colony, and several dozen planters of the middling sort. One of them was Joshua Hempstead’s grandfather.

The young Winthrop died in 1676, and his sons inherited his vast landholdings. Joshua Hempstead acted as their agent, managing their affairs when the head of the family was away.

John Winthrop the Younger

New London grew into a busy village of farmers, merchants, shipbuilders and mariners. The town did a brisk trade with the West Indies, and Hempstead often notes the arrival and departure of ships from Barbadoes. Within 50 years the population would grow to more than 3,000 people.

In 1711, Hempstead had a growing family, a farm and civic responsibilities. During the fall of that year he had to harvest his crops and work on building a ship while serving on a jury.

Oct. 2, 1711 I picked out Corn & made a Platform to Lay ye husks on & I gathered some corn. A great fire in Boston this night.
He continued to gather and husk corn.

It took five days to find out more. On Sunday, Oct. 7, 1711 he wrote,

mr white Preached in ye forenoon & mr. Hunting in ye afternoon. the sad news came of a great fire in Boston burnt from ye School house Lane to Almost ye heart of ye Town Dock both sides ye Street about 100 houses burnt & 8 or 9 sons Lost.

Death in 1716

John Winthrop the Younger practiced medicine on the side when he wasn’t governing a colony. He diagnosed and medicated about 500 Connecticut residents. His son Wait followed in his footsteps, serving both as governor and doctoring on the side. On August 4, he tried to heal Joshua’s wife, Abigail, who had given birth to their ninth child, Mary, on July 29.

On Aug. 4, 1716 he wrote,

I was in ye yard about Town al day. my wife very Ill. Mr. Winthrop come to visit her in ye Evening used means for her Relief & Mr Miller Let her blood in.

On Sunday, Aug. 5, he wrote,

my Dear Wife Died about half an hour before Sunrise. I was at home al day except in the Evening I went to ye burying place.

Her body was buried about 2 p.m. the next day. He carried the newborn baby to Mary Trumans at night to Nurse. The next day he went to look for a nurse.

Two days later he noted that his 17-year-old son Joshua had taken ill with a sore throat and fever.

On Friday, Oct. 10:

my Dutyfull Son Joshua Died about Noon like a Lamb being 17 years & 20 days old a pattern of patience.

He buried Joshua next to his mother. All three now rest in New London’s Cedar Grove Cemetery.

Cedar Grove Cemetery, 2021. Image courtesy Google Maps.

Joshua Hempstead, 1724

At the age of 46 he decided to travel to Stonington, Conn., to deliver gravestones and pick up some cider. Today the trip is a 20-minute drive. In 1724, it took quite a bit longer, even by boat, the preferred method of transportation along the coast in those days.

On Nov. 12, 1724, Joshua Hempstead set out for Stonington with his son Stephen. He reported in his diary, as usual, on the weather. It started out fair, but didn’t stay that way.

I Set out for Stonington in Jos Coits Longboat with Stephen in order to fetch Cyder. I carried 10 pr gravestones. 7 for Wm Wheeler, 1 for Ebe Wms & 2 pr Not Sold. ye Wind was high about W S W & a great Sea that I dare not venture Round Long point. I put in for Mumford’s. But got on the flatts was forced to put most of the Stones overboard & yt got a Shore. Lay out al night under a Hay Stack.

The weather improved the next day, and Hempstead and his son visited the famously hospitable George Mumford. Wrote Hempstead:

In ye Morn wee went up to Mumfords on Mr Winthrops farm Stayed for the Tide to Rise got ye Stones in about 2 Clock & got up with them about 6. I Lodged at Mr Wms & Stephen at Bennats with John.

Adam Jackson, 1727

On Sept. 21, 1727, Joshua Hempstead bought a slave, Adam Jackson, for 85 pounds.

“I bot Adam for £ 85,” he wrote.

It wasn’t unusual for people in coastal New England towns to own an enslaved person or two. Nearby Rhode Island, the slave-trading capital of New England, provided a steady supply of kidnapped Africans to work in bondage.

Jackson, born in Africa, lived in the Hempstead house with him for 30 years. His children did too, as well as other members of Hempstead’s family.

They worked side by side.

On a cold spring day in 1728, “I was on the Island with Nathll & adam cutting wood.”

In July of 1730, “wee Carted the Ld of hay to Stewarts & Carted 2 Ld in the lot & Stackt it & mowed the oats only my Self & Adam.”

In the fall of 1747, “In the foren[oon] I went to mamacock with adam & Jonat & finisht Raking the Salt hay.”

And as late as 1754, when Hempstead was 75, “helpt adam Load up 4 pr of gravestones at Picketts wharf…”

James Davenport, 1743

Many New England towns were caught up in religious fervor called the First Great Awakening during the 1730s and 1740s. A cross-eyed English minister named George Whitefield helped start it all, touring the colonies to give fiery speeches.

James Davenport and others followed in Whitefield’s footsteps. They preached that people could find salvation through spiritual rebirth – a rebirth that started with public weeping, groaning and howling. A Yale graduate from Stamford, Davenport’s career nosedived when he threw his pants into a bonfire of the vanities in New London.

Joshua Hempstead took notice of Davenport and his followers, who called themselves New Lights. The preacher did not impress Hempstead when he went to hear him on Feb. 27, 1743.

I went to Town to Meeting to hear Mr Davenport, but it was Scarcely worth the hearing. the praying was without form or Comelyness. it was dificult to distinguish between his praying & preaching for it was all Meer Confused medly. he had no Text nor Boble visable, no Doctrine, uses, nor Improvement nor anything Else that was Regular…he Calld the people to Sing a New Song &c forevermore 30 or 40 times Imediately following as fast as one word could follow after another 30 or 40 times or more & yn Something Else & then over with it again. I cant Relate the Inconsistance of it.

George Washington, 1756

Hempstead died on Dec. 22, 1758, 17 years before the American Revolution started. He did, however, catch a glimpse of a 24-year-old George Washington, who rode through town during the French and Indian War.

George Washington by Charles Wilson Peale.

The sight of Washington in New London on March 8, 1756, caused him to wax unusually descriptive.

Col. Washington is returned from Boston and gone to Long Island, in Power’s sloop; he had also two boats to carry six horses and his retinue; all bound to Virginia. He hath been to advise with Governor Shirley, or to be directed by him, as he is chief general of the American forces.

By then Hempstead had trouble with his hearing. On Aug. 20, 1756, he recorded a trip to the doctor in his diary:

fryd 20 fair. In the foren(oon) I rid out & Joshua to John Stubbins’s & Wm Manwarings & there had Doctor Wm Hough to Try to help me in hearing. he Seringed my Ears & drew out a Large gob of Ear wax out of my Right Ear & then I could heard my Watch click which I could not before. Chappel & adam finish Stacking the last hay att the Lowerend of the Lot.

This story was updated in 2022. Images: Joshua Hempstead House By Jerrye & Roy Klotz, MD – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35972709.

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